VMware's Fusion for Mac is among the company's most successful consumer products, used by millions of Mac owners to run Windows and Linux virtual machines. But VMware is now reaching into its expertise in IT to pitch Fusion to businesses, with a new professional version designed to provision (mostly Windows) applications to employees or contractors who use Macs.

The Fusion professional edition is one of several upgrades announced on Thursday for VMware's desktop virtual machine products for OS X and Windows. Fusion 5, as expected, adds optimizations for OS X Mountain Lion and Windows 8 (although Fusion 4 will work with those operating systems just fine if you prefer not to upgrade). Workstation 9 for Windows and Linux adds optimizations for Windows 8, allowing Microsoft's touch interface for Windows 8 to be manipulated inside a virtual machine, just as if you were using a "real" Windows 8 touchscreen computer.

Both Fusion and Workstation have "millions" of users. While VMware wouldn't tell us exact user counts, it did say that Fusion is more popular—perhaps not surprising as it's a consumer product. Fusion 5 is the first to also come as a professional edition. It has the same features as the consumer software, plus the ability to create "restricted virtual machines" in which IT shops can provision Windows apps to users while imposing restrictions designed to prevent data leakage. It works with any Windows operating system from XP to 8.

"To prevent tampering of the corporate image, restrictions can prevent users from changing virtual machine settings or attaching USB devices to Windows," VMware said in its Fusion announcement. Restricted (and encrypted) virtual machines can also be configured to prevent dragging and dropping files between the Mac and the Windows guest operating system. Essentially, it's similar to the virtual desktops corporations host in data centers and stream to end users' computers, but it's on the Mac rather than being accessed from a remote location. Since businesses provide their own support to employees, IT shops can direct users to their Web support portals with a link in Fusion's help menu.

A Fusion 5 Pro license includes a commercial license for VMware Player 5, a similar product for Windows and Linux. Player is free for non-commercial use, but including the software with Fusion 5 lets businesses deploy the same Windows VMs to any Mac, Windows, or Linux system. Another feature of Fusion Professional is a custom network configuration tool "for creating specialized virtual networks for demos, home labs and testing purposes," as detailed in the product release notes.

Restricted virtual machines are also a feature of Workstation 9. Workstation's latest version lets users remotely access either Workstation or VMware vSphere virtual machines from tablets, smartphones, or PCs through a Web interface that does not rely on Flash or any other browser plug-in. VMware has revved up the raw power of the Workstation software, with "faster startup performance, USB 3.0 support for Windows 8 virtual machines, Intel Ivy Bridge compatibility, more powerful virtualization extensions, virtual performance counters, support for OpenGL 2.1 on Linux, and improved 3D graphics performance."

Similar performance enhancements were made to Fusion, with a promised "up to 40 percent" increase in speed, better battery life, faster 3D graphics, and support for the MacBook Pro's new high-resolution Retina Display. User interface improvements for Macs running Mountain Lion include the ability to search for Windows programs in the Mac's Launchpad, notifications in Mountain Lion's Notification Center, and support for AirPlay mirroring to stream Mac and Windows applications to a TV connected to an Apple TV box.

For power users, memory restrictions have been raised to new heights. Previously, Fusion allowed a total of 40GB of memory to be provisioned to virtual machines, with an 8GB limit on each virtual machine. The 8GB-per-VM limit is still in place, but now users can devote up to 60GB to virtual machines in total if they have a Mac with 64GB of RAM, VMware Product Manager Nicolas Rochard told Ars.

Fusion 5 and Fusion 5 Professional are available for $49.99 and $99.99, respectively. Users who bought Fusion 4 on or after July 25 can upgrade for free, and anyone with Fusion 3 or 4 can upgrade to Fusion 5 Professional for a discounted rate of $49.99. Businesses buying 10 or more licenses to Fusion 5 Pro are eligible for discounts of up to 30 percent.

Workstation 9 can be bought for $249, with upgrades from Workstation 7 or 8 costing $119. Anyone who bought Workstation 8 on or after August 1 can upgrade to Workstation 9 for free.

VMware's main competition on the Mac, Parallels, just announced that the next major version of its own software will be available on September 4. Last year, we provided an in-depth review of both Parallels Desktop 7 and VMware Fusion 4. We plan similar in-depth coverage this year after we've fully examined the new versions of Fusion and Parallels.

Although running operating systems in virtual machines can generally lower security risks, we reported this week about new malware targeting VMware virtual machines. In a new support article, VMware said the malware can affect VMware Player or Workstation virtual machines, but relies on social engineering tactics and "does not use any vulnerabilities in VMware Workstation or Player to infect the virtual machines." The VMware support article offered some general best practices to help users avoid infection.

If you velcro that to the back of your Macbook, and sit the two on a Lazy Susan, you can easily switch between desktops with a 3-finger swipe. Or by slapping your palm against the corner, I really don't care what gesture you use.

Clearly he hasn't ever had the need to run 2 or more operating systems at the same time. Because software is unique to either platform and can't be had on the other. And you want to share data between those two operating systems. Or you want to run a server on one OS and leave the other to general computing. That's what I do at work.

For example - right now on my Mac Pro, I have Mac OS 10.7, and 10.8 client VM's, with Mac OS Server 10.7 and 10.8 VM's AND my corporate Windows XP VM. Counting the host OS, that's 6 systems running on my box, and I'll be standing up a 2008 R2 domain controller VM soon to do some additional testing.

Tricky to do that on a Windows laptop for less than $50......

Ah, I see. None of this is really for me. The article didn't really go into detail what Workstation 9 was for and I added the cost of Windows 8 Professional at $199.99 to $249 to get a PC laptop. Once I dug around the Internet for some clarification I found this:

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just tried to upgrade, and the purchase screen is pre-filled with my old address and won't allow me to make any changes to it. I can't seem to find anywhere in my account profile to change my address either.

Update: For anyone else having this problem, it's there under your name at the top of the screen -> Profile. Don't go into My VMware, which seems to think an individual is a corporation (political reference not intended).

Update 2: My address is still wrong on checkout, even after updating it. I've tried logging out and going through the whole process again as well. Oh, and I had to tell VMware my job title and how many employees I have (required). And I still can't just buy the damn product. Not a very good customer experience.

Update 3: I was able to manually change the form fields by going into the dev tools on Safari (or whatever your browser of choice is), and changing the values in the form fields in the HTML. Who the hell seriously tries to disable the option to update your address.

For example - right now on my Mac Pro, I have Mac OS 10.7, and 10.8 client VM's, with Mac OS Server 10.7 and 10.8 VM's AND my corporate Windows XP VM. Counting the host OS, that's 6 systems running on my box, and I'll be standing up a 2008 R2 domain controller VM soon to do some additional testing.

Tricky to do that on a Windows laptop for less than $50......

Ah, I see. None of this is really for me. The article didn't really go into detail what Workstation 9 was for and I added the cost of Windows 8 Professional at $199.99 to $249 to get a PC laptop. Once I dug around the Internet for some clarification I found this:

Which seems to indicate the product is aimed at sysops, or something beyond my meagre understanding.

I think I'll just stick to Boot Camp, but thanks for all the information, it was edifying.

You're right that the workstation version isn't for you (or me). We both have 'meager' needs for running wn programs. It's also for windows and Linux computers only, so it wouldn't run on your Mac.

However, the $50 fusion vm might be exactly what you might want. For that, you can run your boot camp windows OS (and the programs you have loaded there of course) as just another program on Mac OS. No reboot required. Also makes sharing files between your win and Mac programs transparent. And it has a mode that makes the win desktop disappear so a windows program runs in its own window just like any Mac program. I think VMware has a trial version, so take a look. (the same goes for another popular vm, parallels.).

Agree with [maven]. Also not too impressed by the switch to a yearly cycle. I didn't think VMWare were playing Parallels' game.

I think it has a lot to do with Apple's yearly updates to OS X.

Exactly. Another idiotic complaint I’m seeing is that VM’s are overpriced compared to the host Mac OS.

But they can get a computer in their computer in a box . And I sure wish I didn't have to outlay $100-$200 every time I wanted to start a new VM while keeping my old (of course that's a Windows based VM).

What gets me is why VMWare doesn't have a consumer focused version of Workstation like they do with Fusion? I mean, I get it. Macs can easily (and legally) run Windows in a VM and it's a common enough thing to want to do (for all of their protestations to the contrary many Mac users do need Windows) and vice versa isn't true. There are still many things that I would like to run in a VM (and VMWare is IMO the best) on Windows and $250 for Workstation is not an ideal situation.

I'd jump on a Windows consumer centric version of Workstation in a heartbeat.

The only thing I miss from Workstation a bit is snapshots, but if you're snapshotting vms while they're off, Player will use the current state.

Since Player gets installed with Workstation, I always install Workstation without a key and just use Player, then use Workstation for the times I need snapshots. But my snapshot needs are very simple.

Agree with [maven]. Also not too impressed by the switch to a yearly cycle. I didn't think VMWare were playing Parallels' game.

I think it has a lot to do with Apple's yearly updates to OS X.

What gets me is why VMWare doesn't have a consumer focused version of Workstation like they do with Fusion? I mean, I get it. Macs can easily (and legally) run Windows in a VM and it's a common enough thing to want to do (for all of their protestations to the contrary many Mac users do need Windows) and vice versa isn't true. There are still many things that I would like to run in a VM (and VMWare is IMO the best) on Windows and $250 for Workstation is not an ideal situation.

I'd jump on a Windows consumer centric version of Workstation in a heartbeat.

Meh, it won’t import from Parallels 7. I get a “disk header” error at the last second for 3 separate installs.

One thing that I like is that it doesn’t install hidden files like Parallels does. It went straight to the trash and Hazel picked up the rest. I’ll test again in the next revision.

What I need is performance and efficiency since I often run 3-4 VM’s at once. Hope it improves on Parallels since that’s what I care about the most. Parallels runs great but if I can squeeze out more from these VM’s, I’ll switch in a heartbeat.

How is using a totally separate box (which will cost you more money to actually buy said box and run it, and take up more space and time setting up the ability to share things between the two) a better solution than simply running the other OS on the same machine at the same time as the primary OS?

I have no love for Windows, or any real use, but there are some applications that exist only on Windows, such as Publisher, which some clients send me files in (despite my cries for them not to lol), so I need to have a copy of Windows and Office on hand to open these things. Booting into Windows or using another machine isn't exactly all that productive. I can just load up my VM, double click the file and it'll open in Publisher and it'll act just like a Mac app (with the Windows application frame of course) so I can just use it seamlessly with everything else I've got open in OS X, including copying and pasting in and out of it.

Everyone will have a different workflow and requirements, just because you don't need this functionality doesn't mean others do not.

Ah, I see. None of this is really for me. The article didn't really go into detail what Workstation 9 was for and I added the cost of Windows 8 Professional at $199.99 to $249 to get a PC laptop. Once I dug around the Internet for some clarification I found this: